


Lock and Key

by hazk



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Mental Instability, Season/Series 15, Writing Exercise, vague writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-30 11:29:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20096545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazk/pseuds/hazk
Summary: There was a ship with a cage and there had once been a key. Temple had gotten rid of said key the moment the lock had clicked shut.





	Lock and Key

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RiaTheDreamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiaTheDreamer/gifts).

When the ship had landed on Iris, Grif had had his back turned. His focus had been lost on something that wasn’t there, and then there had been life.

The Blues and Reds, who Grif had thought to be his Reds and Blues, showed up out of nowhere. The moment he had looked out the window and seen them stand there in line, his heart had caught in his throat and he had run up to them with failing feet.

Grif had almost stumbled, a part of him ready to crawl at their feet if needed. He had a pretty good reason to flail around: He was shocked they would come for him yet elated they had. Relieved he had been wrong to think they wouldn’t.

Church was there, though, and that had given Grif pause.

Another failure. Either he had been wrong, again, of course he had been wrong, and Church – _Epsilon_ – had been alive, and the others had saved him, come back to gloat, and Grif had failed, either that or –

He had been happy to see him. For a second, Grif had been happy to see Church again.

That was when it had all gone wrong.

Church had been happy to see Grif, too, having immediately run up to him, to meet him midway through the yard; in fact, Church had looked almost happier than anyone ever had been to have Grif around again, almost crashing into him to hold his helmet in his hands and laugh.

Which meant it was not Church.

To make it clear, not-Church had then called him not-Grif, too.

“You are alive! O-oh, _god_, we got here in time, I got you –!”

Not-Church had started crying, with the not-Reds and not-Blues – couldn’t be _his_ friends, never would be – hanging awkwardly in the corner of Grif’s eye, glancing at one another with subtle tilts of their helmets. As Grif stood there, lost and waiting to be let go, someone Red gestured at not-Church, an obvious sign as they twirled their finger: He had lost his mind.

And that was when Grif had known he could have never come up with this scenario on his own, which made it a relief when not-Church called him not-Grif again. It all made sense.

Whether a hallucination, or a joke, or some fucked up clone-bullshit, for a second there Grif hadn’t been the one seeing things. Thinking back on the moment, he could remember himself smiling.

Only later had he realized that no one had come back for him.

Not for him. Not his friends.

These people had come for someone else.

* * *

Iris wasn’t the only thing left behind that day, because the moon was where Grif too had stayed.

Grif had no room aboard Temple’s ship. Temple had no room for Grif.

“You are safe… You are safe and we’ve got this all figured out. The Freelancers, remember? The Freelancers, I’ve got them, it’s all under control! They won’t get you now, they’re done, no one will –”

Temple repeated his mantras, and he had long since silenced Grif to avoid them any interruptions. Grif’s voice had made him angry, and anger had no room here, either.

Temple was so happy, _too happy_, to have him back to let himself be bothered by any other emotion. But that would only work for as long as Grif wasn’t who he had once been.

Grif was no match for Temple’s anger – he did what he did to keep it at bay.

* * *

He had been rescued, or so he had been told.

In truth, it had only taken an hour or so after being introduced to Temple for Grif to have realized his previous isolation had been better. Better than the artificial silence of what Temple had built for them.

Though it was never truly silent, here.

* * *

Temple had been quick to fill the leftover space with things that weren’t Grif.

In Temple’s eyes, Grif did not exist. He was nothing, and nothing was worse than something, was the lesson Grif had been just as quick to learn.

It is curious what you might start missing when everything has been taken from you.

At least the moon had kept him company in the form of his own insanity; a scenario after scenario of failure. Now his reality was nothing but real, his, but not Grif, and it hurt.

There was no space for things like dreams here, either. Not even nightmares, when those, too, were listed as something he was no longer allowed.

Temple had nightmares of his own, in spades. Plenty enough for them to share.

* * *

Back on Iris, Grif had learned Temple’s name when not-Simmons, Red, had asked the Blue if he was doing alright. Temple had laughed then, shaken Grif’s shoulders hard enough to rattle what little had been left of his brain by then, and exclaimed that he had never been better.

Temple’s voice had been breathless yet filled with so much life: Everything was as it should be, and it was all going to be okay. They had won. They were safe.

A sigh.

Not-Simmons hadn’t seemed to agree with the guy, glancing back at the rest of the crew with a shrug that seemed to say more than his words ever could. On Iris, Grif hadn’t yet been sure just what to think of Temple.

He knew now.

Weeks had passed since then, and they had had time to learn.

* * *

The Blues and Reds weren’t allowed to see him, not the other way around.

Temple had lost it when he had heard them call him something other than the name he was to go by. Biff never exactly learned who he was, beyond said name.

Biff thought he might as well have already been dead.

Despite that, he knew Temple loved him. Called him his friend. Promised to keep him safe, repeatedly.

Safe not only from the world or the Freelancers he kept cursing, or even the fakes that had tried to steal him away, once. No. Temple promised to keep him alive.

Biff knew that didn’t sound quite right, "alive", and he really didn’t like the word. But he had no way to let Temple know.

* * *

They had never had a chance to challenge Temple, not since the start. Since the day not-Blues and not-Reds had disappeared from their lives, having given up on Temple when they had found themselves unable to steer the ship to another course, there was nothing left to distract him.

As far as they knew, they were the only three left on the ship. There was nothing else to do but focus on Temple’s attempts to make sense of it all.

It all made sense to them, though. It had since the start.

* * *

Temple didn’t really talk to Biff. He didn’t even try.

If there was ever a conversation in this space they shared, Temple was having it with himself.

All Temple wanted was for someone to listen. That seemed to be all he had ever wanted, as far as they could tell, but he had simply never tried asking. Too prideful to do that, too lost.

And since not-Biff couldn’t tell him what he thought about it, couldn’t try to reason with his mouth sewn shut, their silence only allowed Temple to continue wasting their time, talking in circles.

The words were empty.

Biff never learned what had happened to the others, the fakes, whoever they had been. Not even with the way Temple went on and on about all the things that must have once mattered but no longer did.

There were so many questions, about so many things, but Temple would never come back around to answer. Then, if either of them ever tried to come up with their own conclusions, it would only make Biff feel like he was drowning from the inside out. They had long since decided to stop thinking. There was no point.

Stop.

Please.

Stop thinking.

He sat in their cage, aboard the ship, and just listened instead.

* * *

Biff must have been dead. Grif was dead, too, so it all made sense.

Failures on all sides, but unlike him, Temple hadn’t seen it yet. What Temple saw was himself as the hero of his story, this story, this one specific chapter of it:

Temple was the one who had found his friend, brought him back and avenged him.

It was a great story. A hopeful one.

It had been wrapped up with a pretty little bow on top, and in his ramblings and laughter and the silence that wasn’t, Temple never stopped celebrating his victory.

His, not theirs, and by now it hurt a little less.

Nothing about that had anything to do with Grif, you see: Grif hadn’t tried to save anyone and had then simply had the favor returned.

Maybe Grif deserved to be left behind and starve, having given up like he always had.

Maybe Temple deserved to succeed, just this once, by his own design, when he was the one who had tried so hard to get back what he had lost.

Maybe Biff had simply deserved better.

Either way, it all made sense, the more they tried and tried not to think about it.

* * *

“Weeks, it can take weeks, for the human body to die! So easy, though, to make it happen! Cut out all the nutrients, sensory deprivation helps the case – strip away identity, too, just for good measure – and _BAM!_ You’ve got yourself the perfect weapon, with the press of a button! Genius, it’s genius, you should have seen it! I wanted them to know, you know, to know who I was and who we were and what they did! All of them! A war at our expense, all of ours, the human race, not just you or me or the others! They thought they could slip away, did they, they thought they could live on and move on and maybe they could repent in life by doing something else, live a little through dying a little, give up their fucking freedom for a task or a duty and make it worth it – they did think that, I know they did! But it’s bullshit, all of it, you know? Of course, you do, you’ve been there, because no, I think not, with the press of a button I could tell them a story that matters, and I did, and they listened, _and it was genius –!”_

* * *

There was barely anything left of Temple’s voice and that had been all he had had going for him.

Biff could tell Temple was beginning to get scared. He was afraid to leave the room.

There was nothing left of the ship and wherever they were, parked and broken, it must have been far away; no one capable of finding them. Not that anyone would try nor accidentally succeed, never, no.

It was nothing to be disappointed by.

The mantras stayed the same, for each their own.

* * *

Biff had half expected it to go there, but Temple never asked for forgiveness. Despite their time running out, he always found a new way to tell himself, and Biff, not Grif, that he had done what he had had to do and that he had wanted it to go the way it did. That he had wanted them to end up here.

Everything was okay now, better than before, and it had all been worth it for Temple to have his friend back.

Without the ability to argue, or question it in any way, Biff could only watch and listen and disagree. Though, he was beginning to see the cracks in Temple, too: the way he stalled, having a hard time believing even his own words as he spoke them.

Then there was the way his eyes avoided the lock of their cage, roaming the room for a key that no longer existed.

Even without Temple admitting to anything, if any one of them had wanted this, or deserved this, none of them seemed very happy about it the close to the end they came. That was probably the point.

Live a little through dying a little, isn’t that what Temple had said.

But then again, Temple had never made much sense to begin with.

* * *

It happened just as Temple had described and oh had they listened well.

The perfect weapon; a human condition.

Until the very moment, Temple was determined to keep thinking, demanding, that it was all okay, the way it was, and he tried to reassure Biff of it too. He never stopped speaking even when he had long since ran out of breath.

They, Biff, then Grif, had realized he would not last much longer. It had become obvious Temple would be the first of them to go.

And when he did, there was silence, and it was theirs.

It did not last long.

**Author's Note:**

> It’s been over two years since Temple’s debut. A while back, I wanted to celebrate so I asked Ria for prompts and the one I picked went something like this: “Temple loses it, sees Grif as Biff and wants to protect him.” 
> 
> Apparently, this type of writing is what it leads to when I just… write. I felt so weird about this fic, which I only started after scrapping the first attempt (very different lock & key that I might come back to later), and it took me over two months just to push myself to edit. I will never get tired of locking them up, is the lesson here I think.


End file.
